


Golden Crowns

by Vaecordia



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 5 parts of elias' life put together into a string of words, Drug Use, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, also, character piece, he's fascinating, i dont know how to plot, i just wanted more bastard man content, non descript sex, non graphic sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 13:32:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18966244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaecordia/pseuds/Vaecordia
Summary: Elias is going to Oxford, he makes us so proud,his mother smiles with her words tucked neatly between her lips, and the lilt of her voice matches the way she shifts her skirt across her knees.He wonders if they would feel humiliated, seeing him like this.





	Golden Crowns

**_xviii_**

He’s eighteen and uncertain when he finds absolution in the thick haze smothering him. He finds it in the lips that meet his, first tentative and hesitant, shy, until the hunger rears itself in the bite of teeth that capture his bottom lip. It draws a metallic taste on his tongue, and he realises that crimson is what heaven must taste of.

 

His head swims and the world fades around him, and he lets himself succumb to the infinity that opens itself to him as he opens his body and heart to the hands wandering his skin. There’s no words, and he prefers it that way. Talking makes it difficult. Talking makes him remember there’s another person there, and it’s not just a condition of his existence in that drugged up moment. Perhaps it even hurts, but the sting only stains his skin where the hands bruise him, pale skin forced to purple under the careless touch.

 

He gasps out a God he’s never truly cared to believe in, but he goes to Sunday church like his parents want him to, and cries out into the pillow in another boy’s arms. It’s such an easy release, such a swift escape between the emptied beer bottles and the thrill of the risk of getting caught.

 

He’s the pride of his parents and he forgets his hatred of them for a moment. _Elias is going to Oxford, he makes us so proud,_ his mother smiles with her words tucked neatly between her lips, and the lilt of her voice matches the way she shifts her skirt across her knees. She’ll berate him for the way his shirt has wrinkles, his father looks on listlessly before giving a few comments about Elias’ carelessness that Elias brushes off without a care.

 

He wonders if they would feel humiliated, seeing him like this. It’s so improper, isn’t it? And he arches into the touch and the feeling of teeth against his shoulder, carving his present away with every bite and replacing it with a painful oblivion. He succumbs.

 

**_xx_ **

_Try and branch out, perhaps find a job,_ is what they tell him.

 

 _Stop acting like a lower class prostitute,_ is what they mean.

 

They looked at him with hardened eyes and disgrace on their tongue, and he folds like a thin sheet of paper under their scrutiny. They like to keep their disgust pinched behind pristine white-toothed smiles. He likes to let his anger burn at the tip of a cigarette with a sneer painted on his face.

 

He finds himself a nice job that doesn’t seem too exerting, and he’s not planning on putting more effort into it than he has to. It’s not like he’s been trying very hard for classes, barely scraping his way to the Honours programme. And when his job is being a filing clerk at some institution that seems like little more than an elaborate scam, it’s not like he thinks his job matters too much anyway.

 

But he finds he quite enjoys the Institute. It’s a comfortable place, where he doesn’t too often get bothered as long as he does what he’s supposed to. It’s all darkened rooms and a few gossiping ‘researchers’ in the break room. He’s always been good with gossip − he likes to hear the whispers people hand each other, finding that neatly slated truth between the exaggerations and the lies. It’s not long before he knows most of what there is to know around.

 

**_xxiv_ **

_What do you seek in this position, Bouchard?_

 

James Wright is made of misplaced smiles and a twisting glance that sets Elias on edge every time he looks at him. He’s not sure where the wariness is coming from, but it’s gnawing at his neck with sharp teeth and filthy claws.

 

_Where do you see yourself in five years?_

 

His voice has a dark, slippery tone and his words crawl against Elias’ skin, and he hates the way his intrigue latches onto that. He doesn’t trust the man − he’s heard odd things, but he doesn’t know which of them are true. Elias feels himself be the butterfly, ready for Wright’s gently woven web, but he’s unsure why he’s being lured in.

 

_You have a… shining career ahead of you._

 

The hesitation feels like a dangerous ledge Elias shouldn’t step away from, a knife balanced on its tip ready to fall and slice. But he takes the step and accepts what Wright’s proposing − a more permanent position, a promotion.

 

_Good choice, Bouchard._

 

The words are ice, cold and cruel, translucent yet warped in a way that Elias doesn’t understand what he’s missing from the picture. There’s something more, something threatening in every one of them, but he doesn’t know what it is. His grip is made of bones, thin fingers that grip his hand too tight. Perhaps it’s better Elias doesn’t know.

 

**_xxxi_ **

He’s sure he should feel more horrified than this, but the acrid tang of the blood on his hands doesn’t quite have the effect he imagined it would. Wright’s smile is still chilling on his face, as if he knew murder was at Elias’ fingertips and his mind.

 

 _I hope you’re sure of that,_ was what Wright said when he Elias stepped into his office, fingers curled around the weapon, a thirst in his eyes he was sure Wright must have read quite easily from him. Fear gripped his entire body, but he followed through the motions like a puppet on strings.

 

He doesn’t know why, the reasons now little more than wisps of smoke he can’t catch onto. There’s a pressing feeling on his mind, and there’s a clarity to his vision that he doesn’t recognise.

 

 _Good luck with my office,_ were the last words Wright told him, between a cold a choked laughter that curled in Elias’ ears with a wounding cruelty. And yet, somehow, it feels like luck will be but a foe to him.

 

And it’s as if suddenly the enthralling terror that Wright had on him washes away as he cleans his hands, watches the red drip into the sink. He feels his hands scrubbing at each other, trying to get rid of the feeling that’s smeared on his skin, that doesn’t leave no matter how he rubs. Feels his fingernails dig into his palm, trying to get rid of the squirming that spreads through him.

 

He feels watched. There’s no one in the bathroom with him. There’s someone there, and it’s taking every inch of him in, slowly mapping him out. Picking him apart. He’s powerless. There’s ashes in his mouth and his being feels leaden. Perhaps he made the wrong choice.

 

**_xxxiv_ **

He’s brushed his mistakes off his shoulders and replaced them with a clean cut suit that becomes his steel-plated armour. He knows it’s his enjoyment of slippery words, ushered from one person to another in carelessness, his adoration of insight burning through another person that got him here. And there was no mistake. His words are harder and he knows what Wright meant.

 

The entire scheme has wrapped its tendrils around him, and he knows he needs to bring it to completion.

 

But the one thing he perhaps isn’t prepared for, is meeting those funding the Institute. It’s been years, they never asked any questions about Wright’s ‘sudden’ departure. And now he’s supposed to meet someone from the Lukas family who desires to meet him.

 

He knows what he expected. Perhaps an elder man, clearly from an old line and from old money, with the composure of those aristocrats he held in disdain, Oxford’s art historians from Eton and the likes.

 

The man who greets him is all icy smiles that tease Elias to the bone, and he reminds him of a storm at sea. Perhaps it’s the gust of sea-salted air that accompanies him as he enters Elias’ office, perhaps it’s the way he speaks with that authoritative, easy-going tone that reeks of danger and death. Or perhaps it’s the way an empty chill settles around the entire room and he gets the strange feeling the entire world has abandoned them.

 

And for a moment, it feels that the searing grip of the Eye on him lessens, and it both terrifies him and enthralls him. The intoxication of being lured in by something other than the cold grasp of the Watcher slowly seeps into him, and he perhaps lets himself fall too easy to Peter.

 

But then, then he feels that surge of the presence around him, the Eye so entirely omnipresent in the room, and he feels the frailty of the static that cotton-wooled his ears for a minute fade away and struggle under the Sight, and the feeling is a beautiful heady sensation.

 

And the ever-struggling balance of their patrons is something that play well with Elias’ competitive and curious person, with Peter’s playful and secretive attitude. Perhaps he’s found a position that he can settle with. Perhaps this was what he was destined for all along.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Michl's "Kill Our Way To Heaven" which fits the bastard man all too well


End file.
